


Between The Lines

by kiyala



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 12:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14472855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala/pseuds/kiyala
Summary: There's a brand new bird cage in their apartment, and Mayuzumi is struggling to deal with what it means.





	Between The Lines

There was a bird cage in the apartment. 

It was big, as in, _ridiculously_ big when Mayuzumi really thought about it. It took up an entire corner of the lounge room, so ornate that it was probably made by hand and Mayuzumi wanted to ask how much it cost, but the mere thought of it made him a little nauseous. 

The whole thing made him a little nauseous, actually. 

Especially the fact that in the middle of that big, ornate cage, were two little birds. Mayuzumi knew very little about birds. There was a small stack of books on his desk that was slowly changing this fact but the point still stood that at this moment, he had very little idea of what he was doing.

He had no idea why he agreed to it either, or how Akashi talked him into it in the first place. They'd been living together for a year, sure, but it was always just an apartment where Akashi would come and go as his work required of him, where Mayuzumi had his office set up so that he could write comfortably from home, to work on both his novels and his freelance articles. It was their apartment, with their clothes neatly sorted into their closet in their bedroom, but that was the thing with Akashi Seijuurou: it never truly mattered how much he was there, when it felt like at any moment, he could suddenly leave.

Mayuzumi liked to think of himself as a realist and at worst, a pessimist. Sharing an apartment and a life with someone like Akashi was not something he liked to make long-term plans about. It felt as if everything that they did together had a time limit on it and that was okay, provided that Mayuzumi kept that at the forefront of his mind every time they did anything together. Sometimes, Akashi made it easy to forget, like all the lazy weekend mornings they'd spend together in bed, when Mayuzumi woke up and Akashi was still there beside him instead of being called away into a business meeting. Sometimes, it was difficult to ignore, when Akashi would go for days without coming home and then come back smelling of expensive cologne, his kisses tasting like the brandy that he said his father always reserved for the most high-profile dinner guests.

Either way, it was all finite and that was something Mayuzumi was outwardly grateful for and inwardly accepted. He could deal with it. 

Or he could, until the birds happened. 

His fingers slid into his pocket and he snatched them away when he remembered that it was empty, that his short-lived smoking habit was something he'd decided to give up, not for the way Akashi would wrinkle his nose at the taste of ash in his mouth, but because it might be unhealthy for him but it was even unhealthier for their birds. 

_Their birds_ , he thought again, letting out a hollow laugh and shaking his head. 

This couldn't really be happening to him. It didn't align with anything Mayuzumi expected of his life, before or after Akashi Seijuurou came into it, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

The birds were chirping at each other, exploring their cage together, not the least bit bothered by the fact that Mayuzumi was standing there watching them, and that was how Akashi found him, walking into the apartment with a bag of bird seed tucked under one arm while holding onto a bag of other bird supplies with the other. 

"Chihiro?" Akashi raised an eyebrow. "Is something wrong?" 

Mayuzumi didn't know how to reply to that, except for with a quiet laugh. 

"…Chihiro?"

"Do you know how long parakeets live for?" Mayuzumi asked, not looking directly at Akashi. "I don't know a lot about these birds yet, but I looked that up. Do you know what their life span is?"

"Up to thirty years," Akashi replied, without a trace of hesitation. He put his things down on their dining table, then walked over to stand next to Mayuzumi in front of the cage, their arms brushing against each other. 

"Thirty years," Mayuzumi repeated, nodding. "You know, if you wanted, we could have just gotten a cat. A rescue, maybe. Something already a little old, with not that many years left. _Thirty years_ , Seijuurou. What am I meant to do with two birds for that long?" 

From the corner of his eye, he could see the understanding written into Akashi's expression. He still didn't want to look directly, but that didn't stop Akashi from turning to him. 

"Help me take care of them, of course." Akashi never hesitated when he spoke, not even now, and Mayuzumi wanted to be angry about it, for the fact that Akashi would dare to presume something like this, without directly talking about it beforehand.

"For thirty years." Mayuzumi finally looked at him. "Do you plan on hiring me as a bird-keeper?" 

Akashi stared silently, as if to say that he knew Mayuzumi was being purposefully stubborn. "I would like to think I wouldn't have to employ you to take care of our pets." 

There it was again. These birds were _theirs_. Mayuzumi wanted to know how long Akashi intended on this, but that wasn't a question he was sure he wanted to ask, when he wasn't sure which answer he wanted to hear. 

"Ours," he whispered, unable to help it, his gaze dropping to their hands when Akashi reached over, threading their fingers together and squeezing. 

"I want them to be ours, for as long as they live," Akashi told him. "The same way I want you to be—"

"Careful, how you finish that sentence," Mayuzumi cut in. 

Akashi exhaled around a smile. "The same way I want to be yours, for as long as I live."

"You're not being very reasonable," Mayuzumi warned.

"You often tell me that I'm not good at being reasonable at all," Akashi replied, "I thought that it might be best if I stop trying at all. Reasonable or not, I am good at getting what I want."

"And you want this," Mayuzumi said, gesturing with their joined hands to the cage in front of them, to their apartment at large, and then finally to them. "You really want this? Even when you know that it's not going to be easy for you." 

Akashi smiled, the way that Mayuzumi had learned to love so much, brave and ambitious and calculating all at once. "It's never quite as fun when it's easy. I want this, Chihiro. Enough that if anyone stands in my path, I'll bring them to their knees, regardless of who they might be." 

"Careful," Mayuzumi muttered, squeezing Akashi's hand. "You're beginning to sound like a brat I used to know in high school." 

"You liked that brat," Akashi pointed out. "I don't see the problem." 

With a quiet snort, Mayuzumi looked at their birds, yet to be named because he was procrastinating on that while struggling to accept the reality of this entire situation. They were cuddling against each other, content to be together. That was another thing Mayuzumi remembered reading about their particular breed; they were social, and they were better with company than they were alone.

"You haven't asked me," he said, raising an eyebrow at Akashi, "whether I want what you do." 

"I thought you understood, when I told you I wanted birds," Akashi replied. "You agreed back then."

"Am I expected to read between the lines of everything you do?" Mayuzumi asked. "You know me. I prefer simpler literature."

"Do you want this, Chihiro?" Akashi asked him in return. He placed his hand on his chest, and he didn't have to say any more than that, when Mayuzumi knew that it encompassed everything. Their apartment, their life, and everything that they would have to do in order to keep each other. 

Mayuzumi sighed, biting back the smile that threatened to spread across his lips. "I wanted a simple life, you know. I didn't really want anything interesting to happen to me." 

"Then I happened to you instead," Akashi finished, looking so ridiculously pleased with himself for it that Mayuzumi wished he knew a way to stop encouraging it. "Will you have me, Chihiro? And everything I bring with me?" 

"Well, I guess it's too late to stop now," Mayuzumi muttered, pressing their lips together before Akashi could see his smile. "You might as well stay."

Akashi pulled back enough to trace his thumb over the curve of Mayuzumi's lips, just to make it clear that he caught the smile anyway. "I suppose I will, then."


End file.
